Tag: lawrence

How popular is the baby name Lawrence in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Find out using the graph below! Plus, see baby names similar to Lawrence and check out all the blog posts that mention the name Lawrence.

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Popularity of the Baby Name Lawrence

Number of Babies Named Lawrence

Born in the U.S. Since 1880

Posts that Mention the Name Lawrence

You’re on a quest to find a couch, so you’ve driven to the furniture warehouse to test out every couch they’ve got. In the middle of your mission you take a break to chat with a fellow couch-hunter who happens to be pregnant. After comparing notes for a bit — frames, fillings, fabrics, etc. — she mentions that she’s also in search of a name for the baby. Then she tells you the gist of what she’s looking for:

Vivian, Leona, and Lawrence are getting a new baby brother. What are some traditional-ish names outside the current SSA top 50 that don’t start with the letters A, L, H, and V?

You’re a name-lover, and you could potentially give her dozens of great suggestions on the spot. But you’ve still got aisles and aisles of couches to inspect, so you only have time to give her five baby name suggestions before you get back to your shopping.

But here’s the fun part: Instead of blurting out the first five names you come up with (which is what you’d be forced to do in real life) you get to press a magical “pause” button, brainstorm for a bit, and then “unpause” the scenario to offer her the best five names you can think of.

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you brainstorm:

Be independent. Decide on your five names before looking at anyone else’s five names.

Be sincere. Would you honestly suggest these particular baby names out loud to a stranger in a furniture store?

Five names only! All names beyond the first five in your comment will be either deleted or replaced with nonsense words.

Finally, here’s the request again:

Vivian, Leona, and Lawrence are getting a new baby brother. What are some traditional-ish names outside the current SSA top 50 that don’t start with the letters A, L, H, and V?

Looking for a surname-inspired baby name with a connection to Catholicism?

Here are more than 200 options, most of which come from Catholic Englishmen martyred during the 16th and 17th centuries.

Because the goal was to include as many realistic baby names as possible, I interpreted “surname” and “saint” liberally in some cases. Xavier is not technically a surname, for instance, and many of the folks below are not yet full-fledged saints.

On July 9, 1943, the Allies invaded the island of Sicily. Within six weeks they had expelled the Axis entirely, opening up Mediterranean sea lanes for Allied ships and setting the stage for the invasion of mainland Italy.

But before the battle was over, in early August, two American servicemen — 1st Lt. Lawrence Taylor (who was a doctor) and Sgt. Milton Spelman — helped a Sicilian woman give birth a baby boy amid the chaos.

As a thank-you to the American doctor, she decided to name the baby Sam after Uncle Sam.

“The shells were landing all about,” Taylor recalled, “but we got through the delivery okay. The mother, who lived in New York once, told us her husband was with an Italian combat unit near Rome and believed in fascism. But she didn’t. Spelman and I became little Sam’s god-fathers.”

So how did Uncle Sam get his name? The Library of Congress says that the origin of the term “Uncle Sam” is obscure, but “[h]istorical sources attribute the name to a meat packer who supplied meat to the army during the War of 1812” — Samuel Wilson (1766-1854) of Troy, New York. According to the story, the soldiers who knew of “Uncle Sam” Wilson began to associate his nickname with the “U.S.” stamp on packaged meats, and over time the nickname simply became associated with anything marked “U.S.”

The name Samuel comes from the Hebrew name Shemuel/Shmuel and is typically defined as “name of God” (shem + el). Another possible definition is “heard of God” (shama + el).

Yogi in 1956Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra, one of the best-ever catchers in professional baseball (and a highly quotable guy), passed away in September at the age of 90.

How did he acquire the nickname “Yogi”?

In his early teens, Berra and some friends went to the movies. A short film about India that preceded the main feature included a yogi. One of Berra’s friends thought Berra resembled the yogi, so he started calling Berra “Yogi,” and the nickname stuck.

Berra played for the New York Yankees from 1946 until 1963, and it was during this period that Yogi debuted on the SSA’s baby name list as a boy name:

1963: unlisted

1962: 5 baby boys named Yogi

1961: 5 baby boys named Yogi

1960: unlisted

1959: 8 baby boys named Yogi

1958: 6 baby boys named Yogi

1957: unlisted

1956: 9 baby boys named Yogi

1955: unlisted

1954: unlisted

1953: 6 baby boys named Yogi [debut]

1952: unlisted

Starting in the late ’50s, the name may have been given an extra boost by the popular cartoon character Yogi Bear, who was named with Yogi Berra in mind.

Mary Lou was born in Kentucky in early 1927. Her parents had asked a radio station to help them name their baby, the station aired the request, and the result was hundreds of baby name suggestions from across the nation. This is the earliest (complete) example of baby name crowdsourcing that I know of.

What did Seroba have to do with Mary Lou Bartley, though?

That’s what I wanted to know. So I read through the news items, all from 1927, and realized that each one was calling her “Seroba Mary Lou.” Which was strange, as all the sources I’d used to reconstruct Mary Lou’s story for that crowdsourcing post — everything from the 1930 census all the way to her 2009 obituary — referred to her simply as “Mary Lou.”

Here’s a caption that ran in one newspaper:

Seroba Mary Lou Bartley of Whitesburg, Ky., who has the distinction of being the first baby to be christened over the radio.

And here’s an excerpt from an article that ran in another:

During the evening [of the radio broadcast] two thousand names were suggested by the listeners, and the suggestions came from almost as many places. There were many who preferred the quiet dignity of “Mary,” and as many who were interested in a name as modern as “Mitzi.” All of the suggestions were forwarded to the Bartleys and after much thought they conferred on the little newcomer, this name suggested by the radio–Seroba Mary Lou. Long love this Virginia Dare of radio!

I have no idea where the name Seroba came from. Was it part of the crowdsourced name? Did a newspaper reporter make it up? I also can’t figure out why some newspapers mentioned it and others did not.

Regardless, the Seroba-version of Mary Lou’s story was circulated widely enough to boost the baby name Seroba onto the charts for a single year:

1928: unlisted

1927: 8 baby girls named Seroba [debut]

1926: unlisted

So that’s the explanation behind the one-hit wonder baby name Seroba. How crazy that it connects to a name we talked about for an entirely different reason more than three years ago.

What are your thoughts on the name Seroba — do you like it? Dislike it? Have you ever heard of it before?

The list was created by amateur genealogist G. M. Atwater as a resource for writers. It contains names and name combinations that were commonly seen in the U.S. from the 1840s to the 1890s. Below is the full list (with a few minor changes).